Murray awarded OBE in New Year's Honours

It is the very success of our sportspeople that has made a nonsense of the honours system. We need to have a category solely for the winners of gold medals in the Olympics and Paralympics I suggest the initials OLG after the name of a gold medalist After all how would you like to be saddled with a knighthood in your early twenties or thirties? Worse still a Damehood with the other connotations of the word dame. Simpler still, just stick to the gold medal Is that not distinction enough?

Would have loved him to get a knighthood, but suspect the reason is that there were only a limited number they could give out. I also think the expectation is he is going to achieve even more and get a few more GS's under his belt. He is still a work in progress. I also think he is very comfortable with this, whereas a knighthood would have been too much for him at this stage. More motivation to get more GS's if he fancies one at the end of his playing career. His response would seem to indicate it. It's on the Sky sports website. You don't need Sky to access it.

I know many athletes have had to work hard to gain olympic medals. If the people controlling sport in this country want to give them some recognition for their achievements in the sporting world they should give an award which is strictly given for achievement in sport. For instance how about a tennis centre named after Andy in Scotland or even Centre Court at Wimbledon. Perhaps they might find that a little difficult for them to accept but that would be the biggest honor of all. The Andy Murray Centre Court how appropriate.

I know many athletes have had to work hard to gain olympic medals. If the people controlling sport in this country want to give them some recognition for their achievements in the sporting world they should give an award which is strictly given for achievement in sport. For instance how about a tennis centre named after Andy in Scotland or even Centre Court at Wimbledon. Perhaps they might find that a little difficult for them to accept but that would be the biggest honor of all. The Andy Murray Centre Court how appropriate.

That's a good idea to call the centre court after Murray.Good thinking.

I know many athletes have had to work hard to gain olympic medals. If the people controlling sport in this country want to give them some recognition for their achievements in the sporting world they should give an award which is strictly given for achievement in sport. For instance how about a tennis centre named after Andy in Scotland or even Centre Court at Wimbledon. Perhaps they might find that a little difficult for them to accept but that would be the biggest honor of all. The Andy Murray Centre Court how appropriate.

The Andy Murray Centre Court will never be named as such until Andy wins at least three Championships before his retirement. Even then it will be some time after he finishes as a player and then turns his activities to coaching.

Just shows how far behind this country is in it's thinking . The USA has the Arthur Ashe court in New York and I am sure there are others throughout the world. It would be hoped that Andy does not have to wait 76 years before he is given some recognition. It would be nice if he had that kind of recognition before he is an old fossil.

I know many athletes have had to work hard to gain olympic medals. If the people controlling sport in this country want to give them some recognition for their achievements in the sporting world they should give an award which is strictly given for achievement in sport. For instance how about a tennis centre named after Andy in Scotland or even Centre Court at Wimbledon. Perhaps they might find that a little difficult for them to accept but that would be the biggest honor of all. The Andy Murray Centre Court how appropriate.

The best suggestion yet. That gets my vote. I know the Murray family are working on an new tennis centre and support for youngster in Scotland. That would be a good start.

There's no way they'd name a court after Andy while he's still playing. That would be awfully cringey for him, and I'm not sure it's necessary. The tennis centre is much nicer IMO.

It's interesting to see quite a few people saying "how come xxx got y, but Andy just got the OBE", which is far better than having people think he was over-honoured. Other than those who think they're all rubbish, or didn't like him in the first place, lol.

I don't know our honours system is perfect, but most countries have one, and I think that's right, so long as there is good variety to the sort of person who is honoured. Inevitably it's just the famous who are spoken of, but I think it's great that the less obvious are sometimes given accolades, even if they are merely tokens of the many people who do the same kind of work without acclaim.

It's worth remembering that a lot of famous people, the traditional celeb types, are given their gongs for services to charity, whereas all of the sporting ones announced today are for services to the relevant sport. Most celebs, and I bet most sports stars do their fair share for charity anyway, especially once retired as they have to do something with their time!

I'm really chuffed for Andy. He deserved this honour as much as anyone. He's enjoyed the best year of his career and deserved to get some acknowledgement of that from his country.

I think you can argue until the cows come home about who has got what, but at the end of the day Andy was not going to get a knighthood this year. I think he will when his career is over. That tends to happen with sportsmen. I don't think he will need to win Wimbledon to get it either, but it wouldn't hurt lol.

I think people can get a bit caught up in the honours thing, thinking it's political, or archaic, blah, blah, blah. I just think it is a nice way to award people who have done well in whatever field it might be, although I know people will argue about who 'deserves' honours and who doesn't. I also think an honour like this could have wider benefits. Any charity Andy, for example, gets involved with will undoubtedly benefit from his O.B.E., which has to be a good thing. Also, with the intention to open a tennis centre in Scotland, the O.B.E. could be of real use.

I don't think the Centre Court will ever be named after Andy. I'm not sure he'd want that. Somehow I think a tennis centre that is actively working to get kids playing and enjoying the game would be more up Andy's street.

teejay 1 I am not saying that people should not be rewarded for doing well in sport. I do not like the honors system. As I have said previously there should be other methods of rewarding sports men and women. Yes Andy should be recognised for what he has achieved this year but not with an OBE. Perhaps as I have suggested a new tennis centre or a tennis court could be named after him. He deserves recognition for his achievements this year 2 Olympic Medals and a Grand Slam iis not bad going. I hope he goes on in the new year to win more titles and GS.

Incidentally Mark do you plan to put a picture of the OBE medal up on the banner at the top of the home page?

I can't speak for Mark, but I've a feeling that Andy probably wouldn't want that, given how modest he is. Also I think it might look a little out of place here. This, though, is what the medal looks like, complete with it's archaic wording "For God and the Empire" -